Have you ever wanted to enter the lucrative graveyard management business? It might sound morbid or even macabre to consider but that is exactly the premise behind the latest game from the minds of Punch Club, titled Grave Keeper.
Set in medieval times Grave Keeper allows players to expand their graveyard enterprise into the entertainment sector by offering admittance o up public witch burnings, explore new business opportunities like selling the blood of the deceased or finally figuring out what parts of the human body are perfect for recycling. Players will not only be able to acquire new land for their thriving body disposal business but also explore dungeons to find the truly rare loot that is necessary for the efficient disposal of the dead.
Lazy Bear Games will host a publicly available alpha for testers who sign up for it. Grave Keeper will be playable at PAX East, for those not attending the convention Tiny Build has also released a number of animated GIFs from the game as well as a trailer which you can check out below.
The latest alchemically magical release in the long-running Atelier series has finally been concocted for Steam thanks to the wizards at Koei Tecmo. Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book is now available on Steam for $32.99 CDN or as a bundle with another recent Koei Tecmo release on windows, Nights of Azure for $52.78 CDN – both games were developed by Japanese devs GUST.
For this 17th entry in the Atelier franchise players are put into the boots of young alchemist Sophie Neuenmuller as she learns that she has come into the possession of a magical book that has its own soul. Players will guide Sophie through her adventure with the mysterious book as her mentor while she hones her craft of crafting and unravels the enigma that is her mysterious mentor.
Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist & The Mysterious Book was originally released in Japan in November 2015 for PlayStation 4 and Vita with a North American release following this past June.
Wanna know if your rig will run Atelier Sophie? Here are the minimum specs from the game’s Steam Page:
RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows® 7, Windows® 8.1, Windows® 10 Processor: Core i7 3.4GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX960 DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 5 GB available space
Here’s a trailer from the PlayStation version of the game:
In a pleasant surprise today, inXile provided me with an Early Access key to Torment: Tides of Numenera. I have to admit, it’s taking a LOT of willpower to not just get back into the game and ignore my regular duties. One kicker that is keeping me away is I don’t know if my early access save will carry over or not, so there is that at least. That and responsibility and all that good stuff of course.
The best thing about Torment is how it feels like an early 2000’s RPG, and that truly is a plus. Built on the tech that brought us Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian Entertainment, Torment takes on that air of mystery that makes it a worthy spiritual successor to the Planescape title of 1999. You feel like you’re in an alien world and despite being a game with combat mechanics, it feels more like an adventure game. Bits and pieces of memories come back to you as your character struggles to remember a past that may not even be their own. The game even begins by allowing you to react to some of these memories to craft your skills and class.
Having no understanding of the universe, and actually actively avoiding much news of Torment to have it be a very fresh experience, it was rewarding to go through the character creation process with horse blinders on. I just settled for what my decisions lead me to and accepted that my character was just what the intro gave me from my choices. In the end I had a curious individual, seemingly interested in psychic abilities and otherworldly creatures. She could read minds a little as well, giving glints into just what characters were feeling about what they said in conversations.
Considering that much like it’s spiritual predecessor the game is quite dialogue heavy so far, this was a preferred setup. Really it seems you can play the game to your liking from the limited posts I’ve read so far though. Torment feels original, and that’s the best part of it. Not knowing what the world around you is like makes the game interesting.
Otherwise it’s your typical Baldur’s Gate like setup with turn based combat. I haven’t gotten into the leveling system yet but you do seem to gain experience as you go, at least from what I read on some of my skills. If these sorts of titles interest you, Torment: Tides of Numenera is definitely a title to keep an eye on. The February 28th release date on Steam is coming up fast! With over four million dollars raised on Kickstarter to bring this title to life, you know fan expectation is high and eager. I’m very much delighted with what I’ve played so far!
The Kombat Cup an annual Mortal Kombat X tournament returns on February 12th offering casual and hardcore fans alike to take on professional players like the MKX EVO champion SonicFox. With $12,000 of cash prizes available to be one there is a lot of cash available for spilling a little bit of blood – or perhaps dismembering an opponent.
Everything kicks off on Feb 12th with a series of weekly events, called the qualifying rounds. The top eight players from the qualifying rounds will make their way into the quarter brackets for a chance to win up to $400 in weekly prizes.
Here is a breakdown of all of the weekly prizes that will be up for grabs until the weekly portions of Kombat Cup close on May 7th:
Weekly Prizes – Kombat Cup
First Place – $200 and 150 league points
Second Place – $100 and 125 league points
Third and Fourth Place – $50 and 75 league points
Fifth through Eighth Place – 50 league points
Ninth through Sixteenth Place – 25 league points
The finals for the Kombat Cup will take place during the week of May 14th and all of the weekly and final matches will be streamed at 60 FPS on streaming platform Stream.ME which also features content from the Kombat Cup in 4K, if your computer supports it.
Here are the prizes that will be available during the May 14th finale:
Windows PC players will be able to explore the world of Paramitia as one of million potential Warriors of Light in the Steam port of Mobius Final Fantasy. As they follow the path set out before them players are guided by are these disembodied voices commanding the Warriors of Light to continue their quest, are these apparitions really on the level? The whole narrative sets an interesting precedent for online only Final Fantasy titles, sure in FFXIV everyone is the main character, as far as lore is concerned, but in the world of Mobius there are thousands or millions of contenders but only one true WOL and the rest are doomed to fail.
Battles in Mobius Final Fantasy draw from other games in the series – with common items, summons and spells making an appearance but what really sets Mobius apart from other entries in the franchise is the fact that its battle system is turn based + card based. Players can have multiple jobs – each with their own unique decks of cards. Players will have to stack the cards in their favor by unlocking new cards by completing quest and defeating monsters in order to survive the main scenario. and build the best possible decks The cards themselves use different base elements such a stone, ice, fire, cure and more which can lead to interesting strategic options.
Mobius Final Fantasy was originally released on iOS and Android and has multiple free to play chapters available for play. Users on Steam who login to the game will not only be able to claim some freebies including ability tokens and other rarities but also participate in the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake cross over event.
Here’s the Steam trailer, the game will arive on Feb 6th.
The Unreal Tournament franchise might not have the staying power it once had – dominating the team based arena combat genre alongside Quake Tournament III in the early 00s but a dedication group of fans & a small time of developers at Epic Games have been hard at work on the next entry in the franchise for several years. The latest patch for the currently in development free to play online shooter brings a collection of community created maps, some huge weapon changes and a brand new prototype weapons.
The following fully meshed community made maps are available via the Unreal Shop for free. These maps have seen some tweaks and changes since their initial launch:
DM-Salt
DM-Bartrankus
DM-Unsaved
DM-Backspace
CTF-Polaris
Audio Changes
New footstep sounds as well as a whole bunch of new weapon sound effects have been added.
Weapon Changes
The flak canon is currently a work in progress and still requires tweaking in terms of its firepower according to the developer video. It has had its base damage increased and the speed of bouncing projectiles also increased however these projectiles will not apply knock back to opponents.
Rocket launcher’s rocket spread has been increased by 33%. The time needed for a player to lcok onto a target with the lock on mode has been increased the icon was changed from yellow to red. Using the locked on seeking rocket is only effective for 20 meters in front of the player now.
Link guns’ pull mechanism no longer requires a complicated two button press – instead it is now linked to the alt fire button to alleviate confusion. The default ammo count for the Link gun and the amount of ammo picked up from boxes for this gun have been increased.
Field of view on the Sniper Rifle’s scope has been modified, it is also not possible to get a head shot off on a player while they are sliding now.
New Weapon Prototype – The Lightening Gun
This long-range scoped sniper rifle returns from Unreal Tournamnet 2003 – here is how the official dev blog that explains the basic of this new weapon. a lot of the prototype weapons including the Lightening Gun & grenade launcher
“The Lightning Rifle prototype is a long range hitscan weapon with clearly defined advantages and disadvantages; a sniper weapon feared when used at long range but limited at closer range. It has two very different fire modes depending on whether the weapon is zoomed in.”
A leaked trailer for the upcoming Overwatch Lunar Festival event showcases not only quite a few new skins for Tracer, Bastion, Mei, D.VA and others but also a brand new mode Capture The Flag. It looks like a version of the trailer was posted on YouTube a bit early – the event is scheduled to start later today sometime after 9 AM PST. Thanks to the leaked trailer we also know that the event will run until Tuesday Feb 14th and since we won’t be getting a Valentine’s Day event, perhaps the end of the Lunar Festival is designed to break some hearts?
Here is an embed of the leaked trailer (if it hasn’t been taken down):
Here are some interesting screen-grabs from the trailer:
Tracer Being a Goof:
A New Epic Skin For Mercy (??)
Festival Skinned Lijiang Tower:
Update:
Thanks to NEOGAF here is the complete list of new skins & emotes we see in the trailer: “New Skins and Emotes –
Junkrat Tracer Mei Symmetra Dva Winston Zenyatta Mercy Reinhardt Bastion Roadhog
Edit: Oh my god that Tracer lion emote WANTTTTTTTTTTTTT”
New gameplay footage from Bioware’s next space RPG adventure Mass Effect Andromeda will be shown at Nvidia’s Consumer Electronics Show keynote event on January 4th. The confirmation of a brand new gameplay trailer, which will reportedly focus on in-game environments, comes via the official Mass Effect Twitter account.
Here is the tweet that confirmed the brand new gameplay segment to be shown during CES:
Here is Nvidia’s official description of their upcoming keynote which will also be live-streamed:
“This January, NVIDIA will kick off CES and usher in a new year of technology innovation when co-founder and CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, takes the stage to give the preshow keynote address on January 4, 2017, 6:30 p.m. PST, of the industry’s most exciting tech unveilings in artificial intelligence (AI), self-driving cars, and gaming.”
We’ve known about the existence of Mass Effect: Andromeda for quite a while – with first word of the project coming over four years ago on “N7 Day” back in 2012. Since then EA & Bioware have been quite open about the development of the game, showcasing early engine technology and animation reels at E3 2014 before officially unveiling the game’s title at last year’s E3. More recently they released the first gameplay trailer from Andromeda, which you can watch below.
Mass Effect Andromeda is expected to be on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One and Windows PC Via Origin.
In honor of Final Fantasy XIV announcing their newest expansion Stormblood, slated for release in early summer 2017, I have decided to write on my current feelings on the current state of the FFXIV. Also, I’d like to discuss what I feel have been amazing changes so far, and what could be improved on when Stormblood is released.
Let me start by saying that I absolutely adore the Final Fantasy series, it took all my willpower to put Final Fantasy XV down to write this, and have been playing this MMO since late 2013. I have seen the game evolve into something that I enjoy, but need to walk away from, time-to-time, mainly because of some of Square Enix’s choices; such as unnecessary token & currency grinds. I do however keep going back because of the community and the ease of access to those communities and other players that I regularly collaborate with.
Since its creation, Final Fantasy XIV has never compromised on its story content. I feel that this main story content is one of Square Enix’s strongest assets. If you have never played a Final Fantasy game in your life, the entire genre revolves around the narrative. All of the games do not have the same storyline, or even continuing stories, though the original content that Square Enix brings forth is phenomenal. The storyline within Final Fantasy XIV and Heavensward are extremely strong, I feel they rival any other single-player offerings that Square has produced.
Since Heavensward launched back in June of 2015, Square Enix has made some dramatic changes including gameplay and world settings. Giving PC players the option to use DirectX 11 as well as upping the graphics on the PS4. The game has since become accessible to all types of newcomers, adding in a feature called the Novice Network, which allows new players to talk to each other. This addition also lets seasoned players who enjoy helping others assist in any questions they have or assist with quests.
Square Enix recently implemented Wondrous Tails, which gives unique and expensive items to
Veteran players who redo older content. This incentive helps to give newer players the information and knowledge they need regarding a dungeon or a boss fight. Another feature that is just phenomenal is how they let you communicate; whether you are in a Free Company (Read: Guild) or just want a small place to chat with you and your friends, Square Enix covered that. Besides having your typical guild, party, and whispers, you also have an invention called Linkshells. These Linkshells allow you to make private channels for you and your friends to communicate, even if you are in different free companies.
So what would I like to see more of, or changed in Stormblood? For starters, I would really enjoy seeing a third dungeon added to the content patches. As it stands, Final Fantasy XIV releases two new dungeons every content patch. Within these dungeons are the means of getting new gear via tokens. When it takes weeks on end to gather all of the tokens needed for your new gear, having a third dungeon to run breaks up a lot of that monotony – as you are forced to grind out the two new dungeons if you are currently up-to-date with the highest tier of items available from the previous patch.
A different way to go about grinding for gear tokens would be to add more ways to earn them such as through gathering professions or crafting professions. I would say by gathering specific items, you could choose between the crafter or gatherer specific tokens or the tokens to gear up. Another big change I would like to see is regarding Relic Weapons, or your classes ultimate weapon. I would love to see the quests for the relic be more story based and less of a token grind like aforementioned new dungeon releases since we have to do that with high end content.
In the vanilla game of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, the relic quests were based on heroes of old that lived within the lore. Expanding the storylines or even creating new ones that are specific to the class would be interesting and create an interactive experience for the player. The quest itself I would see as being fairly lengthy, as it is a Final Fantasy game; just a lot less focused on the grind of tokens and more focused on the story.
Is there any changes you would like to see in Final Fantasy XIV when Stormblood goes live? Let us know!
In a good way, The Sandbox Evolution feels like a PC port of a mobile game inspired by Scribblenauts. Then on top of that there’s also pixel art creation and interesting thermodynamic gameplay. Much of this is covered in short campaigns that teach you the games mechanics so you can dive in and make your own creations.
There are two modes to the game. A creation mode that allows you to zoom around, dropping elements like their hot (or cold, or rocky), and a character mode that lets you run around as a mix of different heroes. From a Ninja who can wall jump to a Hamster that floats slowly to the ground when you jump in the air, it’s a good mix of play characters that give you someone to control through whatever devious levels you design.
Elemental gameplay and character interaction aren’t blocked off from each other. So if you want to have a huge flood or a lava flow that your heroes need to evade, have at it! The cool thing about elements is the interaction they play on the world. Things can burn, lava can eat through ground, and ice can turn steam back into water. What does that matter? Think about it this way. You could make a switch to burn off some water in a cave. The steam from that water drifts over the cavern your character is in and is turned back to water by an icy ceiling. That water then rains down and fills up the cave, allowing you to jump to a high up ledge and escape. It’s clever elements that make the gameplay fun.
Other devices include machines that you can power with electric charges and laser puzzles you can create with mirrors and blocks to bend the light toward your target goal. Elements can effect these things too. Like lightning charging up a mechanical device instead of a button or battery doing the same. All of these features come together to allow for a lot of creativity!
After just releasing earlier this month there have already been a few updates that have addressed small glitches I’ve noticed. The nice thing about The Sandbox Evolution is that the levels are relatively short. So even if you do have the rare crash, it’s not a huge setback. Of course, that does mean you’ll want to save occasionally when creating a level. Sometimes it feels like you need to click and drag in a specific way to create some elements, but it’s never caused me to fail a level. Another level asked me to click and hold to select a color for pixel art creation and instead I needed to click the middle mouse button. These small hiccups are easy to overlook with all the goodies included. Even then, when the game does crash there is an easy to use window to report your problem as well if you wish.
Objects can be bought with in game currency that you earn by completing the included campaigns, and even better, user created content! I was happy to see the inclusion of this since it’s usually the norm to not reward players for engaging in fan made content. At least in the cases I can think of. That and especially since that currency can be used to unlock items in game, it’s a really nice touch.
Really the best way to get an understanding of what The Sandbox Evolution offers is to check out their YouTube channel. There really is a lot of neat interaction in the software that can make for some cool interaction. Or if you just want to chill out and make some pixel art to share on the in game gallery, you can do that too. It is great to see that the games gallery is accessed within the software instead of via Steam Workshop. Not that Valves service is bad, but in this case it’s so much faster to be able to just click through levels in game that are downloaded basically instantly.
The Sandbox Evolution is a great package with tons of creative elements to play with. Between everything included and all the available user created content, it’s worth the asking price already. Considering there are probably even more goodies on the way from gamers like you, it’s worthwhile to check out!
Respawn Entertainment’s absolutely excellent first person mecha shooter Titanfall 2 will be getting a limited time multiplayer trial for PS4, Xbox One and Windows PC via the Origin Client. Players who subscribe to the Origin Access (PC) or EA Access (Xbox One) can start the multiplayer trial – which is the full multiplayer suite – on November 30th, with everyone else getting access to the trial on December 1st. This time limited multiplayer trial will run until the end of next weekend, December 4th.
A brand new map, Angel City, will also be available for Titanfall 2 on November 30th for pilots who pre-ordered the game, everyone else will get access to the new map before the end of the trial on December 3rd.The remainder of the December 3rd DLC drop will include the Wingman Elite Pistol, six new Titan kits and a new unlockable pilot execution. All of Titanfall 2’s DLC will be provided for free on all platforms.
It turns out that Respawn Entertainment posted an official blog post describing the multiplayer trial thusly:
“Titanfall 2 will host a free trial of the game’s full multiplayer offering. The trial* will begin for EA Access and Origin Access members on November 30th, and become available for all players starting December 2nd on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Origin for PC. This will feature a full offering including all maps, modes, weapons and more including brand new content from Angel City’s Most Wanted DLC on December 3rd. “
Also as the blog post points out, any progress made by trial users make will carry over to the full version should they choose to buy it:
“Progress from the trial carries over to the full game when you upgrade, so you can keep going right where you left off.”
Hello Games, the developers behind the past summer’s highly anticipated space exploration title No Man’s Sky, have broken their nearly two month long silence since the game’s last major update. After shipping seven patches across PC & PlayStation developers at the company took the past two months to look at the feedback both the community & critics had about the game to look at some of the fundamental systems that make up No Man’s Sky.
This latest update – titled the ‘foundation update’ – will address some of the in-game systems, add the foundation for a ‘base building’ system that has been awaited since the game’s launch and will add additional ground work for future updates. Previously, in August, Hello Game’s delayed the roll out of base building and large space freighters as the company worked on the number of issues that early adopters brought to their attention.
In the somewhat vague but lengthy post on the game’s official steam page Hello Games called some of discussions that they observed from both critics and the community ‘dramatic and intense’. Some of the feedback from the community included lengthy reddit posts that ‘documented’ features mentioned by or asked of game director Sean Murray. It should be noted that some of these features were never announced and were simply the speculation or idea of fans and interviewers. Other critical feedback included criticism of sections they didn’t even play – most notably Joe Vargas’ review of No Man’s Skies which included criticism of the centre of the galaxy, a place he never reached.
This week Hello Games will be releasing an update to No Man’s Sky. We’re calling it The Foundation Update, because we have added the foundations of base building, and also because this is putting in place a foundation for things to come.
Detailed patch notes will follow, and release will be soon.
Coming from five years of intense development, immediately after No Man’s Sky released the team spent six weeks updating the game with 7 patches across both platforms. The last of these was 1.09 on Sept 24th which you can read about here http://www.no-mans-sky.com/log/. These fixed many of the most common or critical bugs and issues post-release.
In the nine weeks since then our small team has been hard at work on development, testing and certification for the Foundation Update. It won’t be our biggest update, but it is the start of something.
The discussion around No Man’s Sky since release has been intense and dramatic. We have been quiet, but we are listening and focusing on improving the game that our team loves and feels so passionately about.
Positive or negative feedback, you have been heard and that will truly help to make this a better game for everyone.
This update will be the first small step in a longer journey. We hope you can join us.
Tripwire Interactive and publisher Deep Silver have jointly announced that Killing Floor 2 has gone gold on PS4 and Windows PC. This means that the zombie slaughtering team shooter will be leaving Steam Early Access after being in development for the past 18 months, originally going live in March 2015 on Windows.
Killing Floor was partially developed with the help of Sony Computer Interactive – as the motion capture for the game’s animations were captured at Sony’s Santa Monica California motion capture studios. Other technological innovations in KF2 include the evisceration system which allows individual limbs to separated with each enemies having five distinct separation points. The graphics team at Tripwire interactive also focused heavily on how blood was rendered in the game – spending considerable time on how blood was generate from wounds and how it split onto surfaces.
An open beta was available on PlayStation 4 for all the check out earlier this month. The physical release of Killing Floor 2 will be priced at $49.99 CDN on PS4.
Here’s a picture of the development team that Tripwire released in celebration of the game being complete:
Remember that huge Overwatch leak from a few weeks back that confirmed Junkenstien’s revenge before its’ reveal and supposedly contained in-game character art for the mysterious Sombra? The character’s design has pretty much been confirmed thanks to an early leak of a Sombra art print that will be available on the Blizzcon Gear Store during next week’s convention.
The art piece in question was drawn by artist John Polidora who has worked as a Senior Concept Artist / Character Designer for Blizzard Entertainment since 2014 but he has been with the company in other roles since 2008. His credits include work as a character designer for Overwatch and modeling on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Litch King.
As for Sombra’s design – she’s shown wearing the same purple leatherish outfit complete with amazing sidecut and Uzis. She seems to be channeling some kind of energy into a large omnic like the ones seen in the background of the volskaya industries map, this has lead to players hypothesizing that she might control armies of the robots and her Uzi is simply for protection up close – not unlike Mercy’s blaster.
Here is the art that leaked:
With the Halloween event ending today at 4PM PST do you think Blizzard will reveal Sombra tonight or wait until this weekend’s Blizzcon?
Subscribers to Humble Bundle Monthly can now login and gain access to 7 Steam titles including the early unlock Grim Dawn, the absolutely adorable Slime Rancher, adventure game Deponia Doomsday – which our reviewer wasn’t too keen on, top down action shooter Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Train simulator Train Valley and a few other titles.
Grim Dawn | Released: Feb 26 2016 | MSRP: $24.99 CDN
An isometric action RPG set in an apocalyptic time, Grim Dawn features hundreds of items & quests as well as a dual-class system allowing players to mix and match their play styles. The developers also promise that the quests in Grim Dawn carry with them some sense of consquence, so if you’re into impacting the world around you – this might be the game for you.
This is perhaps the most adorable game I’ve seen in quite some time – you take the role of an young slime rancher who dreams of making her fortune among the stars. After blasting off into the cosmos the player lands on a distant planet inhabited by all sorts of colorful cute slimes. Using her trust backpack this very much still green rancher must suck up, repel and collect the slimes to survive in this harsh environment.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number | Released: March 10th 2015 | $15.99 CDN
Wrong Number is the sequel to the ultra-violent indie shooter that made its mark a few years back. This sequel wraps up the Hot Line saga with a brand new soundtrack, intense new enemy A.I, new weapons and some brutal challenges. Players will have to switch up their play style depending on the faction that they are taking on – this could mean approaching challenges differently or making use of the various new weapons in order to pave the way to victory with as many bodies as possible.
Train Valley | Released September 2015 | $15.99 CDN
Build railways to connect cities by laying down track, building bridges or creating tunnels – don’t let the obstacles stop you and do whatever you have to connect your destinations. As the architect of the new railways you’ll have to manage congestion and demand for your services by installing switches, additional rails and other junctures to keep things on schedule. Train Valley features real-world scenarios taken from history like the North American Gold Rush and others. Players will travel across different time periods and all around the world as they visit Europe, Japan and other destinations.
These four games represent what I feel is the most promising of the seven new titles available via Humble Monthly in October. Here are the other games that subscribers will have access to:
